Flyers Scoop: Carle's work nothing out of the legendary

BOSTON - Ever get one of those e-mails saying you just won a bajillion dollars if you'll simply provide all of your personal information to someone in Botswana?

It's obviously an urban legend. You can look it up. Right next to the one that says Matt Carle's success is a product of playing with Chris Pronger.

Carle certainly flies under the radar. On defense, everyone focuses on Pronger and Kimmo Timonen. Then, there's the high-scoring offense, and the never-settled goaltending situation that tends to distract attention away from a player like Carle.

The fact is, Carle has had a fine first half, and he's maintained his quality play without Pronger as his on-ice partner the past few weeks.

"The thing about Matt is that he's consistent," coach Peter Laviolette said. "It's not like there's been an offensive barrage out of Matt Carle since Pronger's been out of the lineup. He just continues to go about his business. It's more of just a steady influence of doing the right things. It's not a lot of noise that's made, sometimes when you're on defense there's a lot of noise that's made because of things that are going wrong. And yet he consistently goes out there and does good things and quietly gets his job done."

Carle has only been a minus player in one of his last 16 games heading into Thursday's tilt with the Bruins, nine of them without Pronger by his side.

He's been the essence of consistency on the blue line, doing a lot of the things you don't normally see listed in a box score, which is probably why a lot of his teammates were lobbying for him to be considered an All-Star candidate.

"Typically when you talk about all-star games it is statistically driven," Laviolette said. "You don't normally see defensive defensemen getting called on in those instances. Matt has had a really good start to the season. ... Guys who can defend, who can move the puck out of your end and generate offense, that's where the game is right now."

Asked to assess his own season to this point -- especially compared to last season -- Carle remained modest.

"It's tough to say, it's been a different season,'' Carle said. "Looking back on it now, I think I've had a good first half. Just try to build on it. I think we've done better as a team.

"(Without Pronger) it's just little adjustments you make on a game by game basis. You know Andrej Meszaros and I have played pretty well together the last week or two. That's helped as well.''

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Color everyone surprised, but Matt Walker was removed from the long-term injured reserve list Thursday, a full two weeks sooner than expected, and made his debut for the Flyers after missing the first 42 games of the season with similar hip injuries, both of which required surgery.

Walker, 30, replaced the ineffective Oskars Bartulis. Walker was paired most of the game with Carle while Meszaros was reunited with Sean O'Donnell, who had been playing with Bartulis.

"He hasn't played since last April but at some point we wanted to get him in the lineup," general manager Paul Holmgren said about Walker. "I know he's been feeling real good, probably the best he's felt in a long time. There are no issues with his hips or back."

Walker was cleared to practice with the Flyers Monday and for the first time in a long time, was pain free.

"He said to me he feels the best he's felt in years," Holmgren said after the Bruins defeated the Flyers 7-5. "The difference between training camp and now is night and day, how he's moving around. I think his physicality is going to help us right now."

Walker originally hurt his left hip during a fight in the preseason and then injured the right hip during a rehab stint with the Adirondack Phantoms. With his return, the Flyers remained under the daily cap but went from having $3.5 million in cap space available for acquisitions to about $1.9 million.

NOTES: Nik Zherdev returned to the lineup after missing four straight games, two with a groin injury, and two as a healthy scratch. ... Dan Carcillo was the odd forward out, losing out to Zherdev and Jody Shelley, who got in his seventh fight of the season and picked up a win over Shawn Thornton.